This entry was posted
on Sunday, October 31st, 2010 at 10:21 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Classic stuff. I just want to offer my 2 cents that republicans ARE more crazy in the sense that the super crazies are more mainstream on that particular side. In other words, you hear from the birthers and the Sharon Angles and you don’t hear from whatever their equivalents would be on the left. This is just what I’m perceiving as a sorta ‘liberaltarian’ so feel free to offer me a different perspective, folks.

I just want to offer my 2 cents that republicans ARE more crazy in the sense that the super crazies are more mainstream on that particular side.

Yeah, I mean, they even have people who believe you can borrow a trillion dollars from China, give it to your rich campaign contributors, and it’ll “stimulate the economy”. Or that if the federal government takes over healthcare, it’ll become more efficient and costs will go down. Yeah, those stupid Republicans.

@ClassAction: How do you know what the guy does and doesn’t know about Rush (the Band’s) reading preferences? I know that and I still think Rush (the band) is the good Rush and Rush (the radio personality) is the bad Rush. I fail to see evidence for your assertion.

#4, Nick I’m not too surprised you think that because of your stated politics and the fact that the media has been ripping on the tea party types for a year now. You want lefty extremeists? Look to the feminists in NYC who want to make catcalling a crime (or Bloomie going after salt/transfats). Heck, just look at feminists in general. Then as #9 mentioned, that whole single payer government healthcare will take good care of you idea.

–6
#14 | Joe | October 31st, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Why is the oval on the Beck rally drawn to the Washington Monument? Shouldn’t be drawn to the WWII memorial?

–2

I thought somebody would comment on the link, other than just negatively checking the comments. Seems like the two events were roughly similar in size (Beck’s may have been slightly bigger). I even noted at 14 that the aerial for the Beck rally was drawn bigger than the aerial seemed to justify.

1) It is New York State. I am pretty sure the NY Legislature could probably create a bright line rule on kid liability. Of course, if a kid injures somebody and there is no one to claim against, that kind of sucks for the injured person. You also recognize very few kids have assets worth suing against and all of this is about triggering the kid’s parents’ insurance to pay a settlement to the injured person.

2) While the Democrats do tend to work hand in hand with trial lawyers, I am not following why Jon Stewart would be responsible for that. Plus I know plenty of Republicans who would put tort reform pretty low on their list of bugaboos. And most tort reform from the GOP is about limiting med mal and frivolous lawsuits.

So what’s the difference here between media outlets that focus only on the most obnoxious and racist elements of the Tea Party movement, and this piece which focuses on slightly loopy people who don’t seem to be very well-informed? Surely this wasn’t a validated, randomized sampling of all the attendees. Anyway, it seems to miss the point. Certainly, the majority of people there tend to lean to the left of Fox news and the Tea Party, but the point of the rally was to encourage people to engage in a more rational discourse about policy, and to show that there are people who don’t appreciate the heated, over-the-top rhetoric that tends to be at the forefront of the political process.

The link you offered for the rally pictures is misleading. The Beck rally is looking West towards the Lincoln Memorial. The Stewart rally is looking East towards the Capitol. They both appear to be taken from the top of the Washington Memorial. The Beck rally fills the space between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, though much of this space is filled with the Reflecting Pool, not people, and this space is shorter than the space between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. The Beck picture shows the entirety of the space between the WWII and Lincoln Memorials. The Stewart picture does not show the entirety of the space between Washington and the Capitol.

All in all, the pictures just don’t show enough to make any fair comparison about the size of the rallies. You offered the link without commentary, so it’s hard to know your intentions. But the intention of the people posting at the link seems to be to indicate that the Beck rally was far larger than the Stewart/Colbert rally, and I just don’t think we can conclude that (or anything, really) from the pictures offered.

Thanks and god bless you, sir! Now that was fun. The parts where people tried to rationalize or explain their political ideas was informative, were not particularly enjoyable. Oh well, a rally can’t have it all.

I watched the rally and was unimpressed. It was much more concerned with criticizing style than with commenting on substance. It completely glossed over the fact that many democrats have tolerated or even celebrated the same sorts of abuses under Obama that they vociferously condemned over Bush. Arguing that we should work together (like commuters merging in the lincoln tunnel) when we honestly cannot agree on the direction we should be going.

Gotcha. I’ve never been to the top of the Washington Memorial, so it’s possible the photos were taken from higher above it, via a helicopter or something.

Frankly, I don’t think it matters which one had more people and the people obsessing over it ultimately have little to contribute. I just think, if there is going to be any focus on it, we must be critical of the evidence we are being presented. And I don’t think any legit critical analysis of those two photos offers enough information to draw any conclusions one way or another.

Well, that video was a disappointment. I figured the audience would be quite liberal, but was was Reason TV really unable to find a single Republican to interview?

I love watching the Daily Show/Colbert Report, but if I was interviewed at the rally, and someone asked me to list a few stances from both sides that I agree with, I would have been able to do that, unlike the joker that just stood there and went ‘well I’d have to think real hard on that one.’

I was at the Rally. It was not particularly young (as noted on C-Span). I guess it was a bit a white, but I can tell you, I saw LOTS of Muslims and Arabic people at the Rally. The bias here towards the rally crowd is just as bad as liberals against Tea partiers and the Beck crowd. You people are no better than them. Now, I have also been to a Tea Party rally, so my views are first person witness. The Tea Party rally was ugly. Mean spirited, angry. The Sanity rally was cooperative, fun and hey, they CAN spell better.

I wasn’t at either rally, so I can’t speak to what actually happened. But do you really think it is fair to attack Charlie for reporting what he saw? He didn’t extrapolate his observations to the individuals or the movement as a whole. He simply reported the vibe he witnessed. If we are going to consider any judgement as evidence of bias, than there is absolutely zero room for discussion.

If the Tea Party rally was angry and mean-spirited, it is not biased to say so.
If the Sanity rally was cooperative, it is not biased to say so.
And if the reverse were true of either rally and that was reported out, that would not be biased either.

It is fair to wonder whether Charlie O’s (or anyone else’s) perception of events was influenced by their own bias. This tendency is well-documented. If we already perceive a group to be “angry”, we are more likely to classify their actions as such. So, the possibility for bias still exists, there is no denying that. But simply screaming “BIAS!” at someone who offers an opinion you find disagreeable is not conducive to dialogue. If you have reason to believe that Charlie’s opinion is biased, or that his observations are non-representative, throw that into the ring.